Sony execs insist it is not because of Kristen Stewart’s affair with the director of 2012’s Snow White and the Huntsman as to why Snow White inexplicably drops out of the sequel. Whatever the reason, Stewart dodged a bullet. The Huntsman: Winter’s War is a ridiculous prequel and sequel to what was a pretty good and realistic fairy tale. The character stories do not match the previous film, chronologies are off, and the entire atmosphere feels cheaper, a knock-off. Snow White and the Huntsman made Sony enough money to warrant a sequel, but outside events forced their hands into taking the story in a different direction and none of it turns out for the better.

Let me take you back a little ways. The Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth, In the Heart of the Sea) was a suicidal alcoholic grieving over his dead wife when he began his Snow White adventure. We were made to believe the evil witch Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron, Mad Max: Fury Road) killed her. Well, actually, another queen killed his wife, Sara (Jessica Chastain, Crimson Peak). Queen Freya (Emily Blunt, Into the Woods) is Ravenna’s sister wouldn’t you know and sets up shop in the icy far north ala Frozen. This is not just a metaphor. After Freya undergoes a metamorphosis from normal into a white-haired monster able to shoot ice out of her fingertips, narrator Liam Neeson (Ted 2) says she escaped to a ‘frozen wasteland’ and became its ‘ice queen’. I hope Disney is picking up a royalty here.

We remember Ravenna had a brother she grew up with and was her sidekick in the previous film; he was in all the flashbacks and was framed as Snow White’s sadistic captor. There was no sister; there was no mention of a sister. She wasn’t in the flashbacks where she should have been. Writers Evan Spiliotopoulos and Craig Mazin invented her to try and make The Huntsman work as its own film and do their best, but not enough, to squeeze her into the chronology. Ravenna and Freya enjoyed a close, sisterly relationship until Freya’s illicit love affair/fiancé set fire to their newborn daughter. Hate it when that happens.

Freya’s lesson learned here is that love is not just bad, it is a sin. Kidnapping all her realm’s children and slaughtering their parents is Freya’s level-headed way of saving the children from such awful things as parental love. She trains the new orphans to become her private huntsman army. Enter Eric and Sara; Eric being the name of the huntsman we already know. It takes all of five minutes before Eric and Sara fall in love, get discovered, and have everything go to shit. That takes care of the prequel portion. The sequel involves the mirror mirror on the wall after Ravenna’s death at the end of Snow White. Someone steals the mirror and Freya now wants to get her hands on it to not only control the rest of the world, but save all those poor kids from all that evil love floating around out there. The huntsman, some new dwarves, and a surprise guest journey across the realm to get the mirror, run into some seriously athletic goblins, and recreate the adventures from the previous film.

New director Cedric Nicolas-Troyan was the visual effects supervisor and 2nd unit director last time around; Winter’s War is his first full time gig as director. He gets a running start because we already know what most of this fairy tale world looks like. The major new additions are Freya the ice queen and the goblins. Famous costume designer and three time Oscar winner Colleen Atwood is tasked with most of the work on Freya. Freya mostly stands still in her throne room looking regal in her sparkly gowns and throws out some visually-suspect CGI ice walls whenever she gets pissed.

Not as overtly maniacal as Ravenna, Freya is a more nuanced villain. From her origin as a pure-hearted girl who took pleasure in simple affairs, she was content to never discover her power trapped deep down inside. Her ice powers, born out of heartbreak, anger, and rage are on another end of the spectrum from Ravenna’s power. Ravenna does not affect nature around her but can turn into birds, shapeshift, and throw black tree limb spear things out of her torso. While half of Winter’s War is a classic fairytale conflict of good vs. evil, there is a sibling rivalry sub-theme which is tacked on and fails to gel. This entire prequel/sequel is tacked on and never feels like the studio or filmmakers took it seriously; it is a cobbled together series of parts held together by Scotch tape after the departure of Stewart and the original director.